Wednesday, January 18, 2006

From Bill Simmons' column about being called out by Isiah Thomas on Stephen A. Smith's call-in radio show:

Well, now I have a new career highlight: During a New York radio interview Monday, Isiah Thomas threatened to make trouble for me. Talking to Stephen A. Smith he said, "I'm gonna tell ya ... if I see this guy Bill Simmons, oh, it's gonna be a problem with me and him ..." I thought it was ironic he threatened me on Martin Luther King Jr. Day -- I'm sure MLK would have been proud.

Martin Luther King, Jr. wouldn't have cared about Isiah Thomas's idle threat, and Isiah doesn't think about Martin Luther King, Jr. every time he talks. I think MLK, Jr. may have been one of the topics of Stephen A. Smith's radio show that day, but Isiah was clearly just talking about himself and his own problems here. He's one of the most competitive guys in the entire universe. He's the GM of a team that hasn't done well under his tenure. I bet he forecasts problems between himself and others all the time. Furthermore, the exchange happened on Stephen A. Smith's radio show, where it's incumbent on guests to be reactionary. Invoking Martin Luther King, Jr. as a comparison to these intentionally provocative performances is inappropriate.

The invocation of Martin Luther King's ideas to try and paint someone else as an asshole is driving me crazy. There's Simmons, there's the Republicans with Hilary Clinton's "plantation" comment. Seriously, it has to stop.

Nick on Wed Feb 08, 06:59:00 PM:

Isiah was talkiing about how media members are rough on African Americans in the front office. It had everything to do with MLK, Jr day. His conversation was about racism in sports. Too bad Isiah is an idiot and deserves to be criticized for sucking at his job.